PDF2BRL(1)

✨ NAME ✨

pdf2brl — translate a PDF file into an embosser-ready Braille file 💖

okay bestie, so if you've got a PDF and you need it in Braille that an embosser will actually accept? that's literally this whole program. it's giving accessibility icon behavior 👑

---

🌸 DESCRIPTION 🌸

pdf2brl [options] infile outfile

so here's the tea ☕ — the infile has to be a pdf file. no pdf, no party, sorry not sorry 🙈

the way it works is kinda a relay race, and it's lowkey iconic:

1. first it calls the pdftotext program, so you must have that installed on your machine. it's part of xpdf, fyi.
2. pdftotext gets called with the -raw and - options, which is what makes it dump its output onto stdout. slay 💅
3. that gets piped into xml2brl, which gets called with the -p option, because the output from pdftotext is likely to be poorly formatted (no shade, it's just how it is 😭).
4. the output file from xml2brl? mostly in sensible paragraphs. we love a tidy ending 🫶

💅 OPTIONS 💅

• --help — print this message. self care, bestie, ask for help when you need it ✨
• --version — print version information. the classic "who am i" moment 💀

🎀 AUTHOR 🎀

Written by John J. Boyer 💜

🌈 COPYRIGHT 🌈

Copyright © 2004-2009 ViewPlus Technologies, Inc. Copyright © 2007,2009 JJB Software, Inc. License LGPL: GNU LGPL <http://gnu.org/licenses/lgpl.html> This is free software: you are free to change and redistribute it. There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law.

no cap — that "NO WARRANTY" is in all caps for a reason. it's free software, so you can change it and share it, but there's no warranty, to the extent permitted by law. periodt 💀

🦋 SEE ALSO 🦋

The full documentation for pdf2brl is maintained as a Texinfo manual. If the info and pdf2brl programs are properly installed at your site, the command

info liblouisxml

should give you access to the complete manual. go read it, iykyk 📖✨

---

that's the whole vibe check, bestie — this was pdf2brl 2.4.0, dated February 2026, and you're gonna do amazing with it 🫶🎀✨